The charge that many supporters of net neutrality were economically illiterate by Washington Post's lead business columnist Steve Pearlstein in "Whiny Techies II" a few weeks ago which I posted on, prompted more whining from Tim Karr of FreePress/SaveTheInternet Coalition in a Letter to the Editor.

Karr: "Supporters of net neutrality aren't asking that users pay one fee for all grades of access. We want a truly competitive marketplace where people can choose from numerous broadband companies offering access at different speeds and costs."

Senator Kerry's recent echoing of the call for a "National Broadband Strategy" by House Telecom Chairman Markey and FCC Commissioner Copps -- is really a slick coordinated bicameral campaign to reverse current national communications competition policy and replace it with a Government industrial policy.

Calling for a "National Broadband Strategy" implies we don't have one when we do -- and it is the law of the land -- the 1996 Telecom Act -- and it was supported by over 95% of Democrats and Republicans when it passed during the Clinton administration -- and by the way it is working.

The purpose of the law is our "national communcations policy/strategy": "To promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower choices and higher quality services...and encourage the rapid deployment of new technologies."

The part covering the Internet: ""To preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet..., unfettered by Federal or state regulation."

The part covering promoting new technologies, Section 706: "The Commission...shall encourage deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans..."

What's wrong with that national broadband strategy?

Nothing.

What's wrong with the progress and achievement of that strategy to date?

Nothing.

Lets review the facts, not the spin that those promoting a new industrial policy cannot support with facts.

To quote one of my conservative heroes, the late great Milton Friedman, "there is no free lunch."

The article chronicles the growing trend that cities around the country are finally learning that simple economic lesson -- which should have been obvious to them from the start.

But how could the cities forget the economic truism that "there is no free lunch" and let their expectations so far exceed reality?

The answer lies in how many companies, who routinely expect a "free lunch" from communications carriers (like net neutrality supporters: Google, eBay-Skype, Amazon, Intel et.al), whispered in these cities ears that they could easily have free or very low cost wireless broadband access.

The problem that these net neutrality/open access proponents brushed under the rug was that building and operating a wireless broadband network, even a lower cost WiFi or WiMax network, still costs a substantial amount of money, and requires substantial resources and expertise to pull off at a minimum quality level.

Bottomline: What I hope cities take away from this painful lesson is what they were taught when they were young: "if it looks too good to be true, it is."

I am on a Broadband Policy panel on Monday at 4:45 at the Future of Music Summit with a couple of the lead folks who champion net neutrality: Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term, and Ben Scott, of Free Press who has slickly popularized it in close coordination with Moveon.org.

Should be interesting, the panel appears to be fairly balanced: one against NN (me) and the rest of the panel avidly for it.

Congress and the FCC are currently working a series of initiatives designed to revise the telecommunications regulatory framework, with everything from spectrum reform, to broadband deployment, to network neutrality on the table. How will proposed revisions impact musicians, citizens and technologists? How does broadband policy intersect with concerns about protecting intellectual property? What would a pro-musician Telecom Act look like?

Google's credibility as a real and reliable wireless carrier has taken a big hit in that Tech Daily is reporting that a Google/Earthlink's "sweeping plan to blanket San Francisco with a high speed Internet network is officially dead."

"We need to defend freedom of speech as more speech comes on line. ...Let’s do this in the right way. Let’s preserve the openness and the freedom of speech principles. You could use Internet censorship, for example, as a non-tariff trade barrier, which we all need to fight because governments, especially non-U.S. governments, have an incentive to some degree to control the populations -- to do all the things that are obvious if you’re afraid of empowering your citizens."

The FT article is a good opportunity to review if Google's actions support Google's rhetoric when it comes to Google defending free speech...